AMosely

.... for three years!

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsAr...archived=False

Too bad they can't go after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad!

Non-free speech and undemocratic as this law is, I still kindof like it.

Ransack

Nice..and others think the US is screwed up....at least we can open up our yaps!

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|TG-1stMIP| Ransack
1st Mechanized Infantry Platoon (C-Team)

MalyJay

Just because someone is blatently wrong about something terrible that happened should not mean that they go to jail. I think its just a big intrusion of free speech and is clearly driven out of a fear of Nazism. If you want to crush Nazism proparly, it should not be through simply covering it up and ignoring the problem. It should be dealt with by ridiculing them and proving them wrong through a democratic debate.
I must say that it kinda funny how now the guy has suddenly changed his mind about the holocaust now hes on trial, he claims hes found 'new evidence' that proves gas chambers existance. On top of that he writing a book called 'Irving's War', an obvious twist on 'Hitler's War'.

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|TG-4th|MalyJay
[GMT] [EST+5]

SmokingTarpan

Wow, this is pretty rediculous. What's the fine for denying Jesus?

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[squadl]
"I am the prettiest african-american, vietnamese..cong..person." -SugarNCamo

AMosely

All seriousness aside, it's pretty insane when a court says "The court did not consider the defendant to have genuinely changed his mind." On one hand I think the guy must be a fool to have gone so far to 'disprove' the holocaust in the first place, but on the other hand I do sortof feel sorry for him. The court is blatantly making an example of him, and there's not too much fair about that.

DudeMan

agreed it is absolutly ridiculous, the guy is obviously a nut, but he said something 15 years ago or whatever... and he has the right to free speech...

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The Queen
"Those who perpetrate these brutal acts against innocent people should know that they will not change our way of life,"
Atrocities such as these simply reinforce our sense of community

TheFeniX
"Guns don't kill people: effeminate men in green tunics do"

Quest Shady

Agree... if saying stupid things was a crime a lot of people would now be in prison and I probably would be one of them especially if you review the last 15 years of my life...LOL!

I have visited the gas "showers" and ovens of Auschwitz and it is a very sombering/dread feeling that you get there.

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Trooper

hell

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that sounds like a good idea trooper.
-Vulcan

JoshZeitlin

My entire ancestry, direct and indirect, were wiped out by the Nazis. There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with forcing a people to acknowledge that sin.

No one makes crazy claims like "the Indians were never massacred." People make claims like this idiot did for a REASON. I'm not going to speculate on his rational for doing it, but his denial, in one way or another, increases the likelihood that it will happen again in some way/shape/form.

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Josh -
Some men will always be animals, while others ... they will be Men.

Arf

On one hand there is the right to free speech. On the other hand there do need to be limits to that right and they can exist without compromising it. For example you shouldn’t be allowed to incite violence against others as it is damaging to civil discourse.

In this case I don't think telling lies to support your cause and discredit you opponents is a necessary component of free speech. If you read between the lines he’s saying that Hitler was framed for 20 million deaths by a conspiracy. The ramifications of that are that the survivors of the Holocaust are conspirators and liars and may even have a secret part in the genocide despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I’d say that’s slanderous and shouldn’t be allowed.

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CingularDuality

Slanderous to whom? Where's the damage? Everyone is simply laughing at this guy and you think it's OK to put him in prison?

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derdmeh

I read the article earlier today and showed it to some people. I was amazed by the penalty, maximum sentence allowable under the law is 10 years. The defendant was quoted as saying, "the law is an ass."

I think everyone agrees that free speech does not mean speech of any kind. People say "freedom isn't free" and seem to mean something like the same thing: the conditions that make freedom of speech possible have to be preserved by force. As Arf said, it's a matter of the context in which these words are placed and their capacity to incite violence. I think no one in the context of Austrian politics can hear someone say these things without immediately hearing them as a pretext for future violent suppression of the rights of Jews or someone else. We might think it's impossible to imagine an entire society suddenly embracing Hitler and racing down the same path again, but it could easily happen.

ScratchMonkey

I disagree. If you can't remain calm in the face of inciteful language, you're not adult enough to be allowed out in society on your own. Violence should not be forgiven or justified because someone said something offensive.

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ScratchMonkey

Note that the US Constitution does not guarantee "freedom of speech". You don't have the right to use my printing press to spread your ideas. The first amendment is a restraint on government, not a license to individuals. If you have the resources to make any statement, no matter how offensive, you should be allowed to do so, and the government should not stand in the way.

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aeroripper

It's free speech, even if its offensive, and he's blatantely wrong. I am just blown away he's getting prison time for this. Of course there are many ways to interprete free speech and it varies differently between western countries. I bet he could get away with it over here in the US, but in europe that stuff is pretty taboo.

Although I do find it odd the holocaust is such a taboo topic, people don't talk about it. If somebody has a real objection to the validity of it happening (Iranian president), I would want to see hard proof that could justifiably challenge the notion that it didn't happen. There is much evidence supporting that the nazi's did this, but what kind of facts do you claim to have that can actually counter this historically accepted fact? I'm open-minded but I'm highly skeptical of somebody claiming it didn't happen.

I do think the vast majority of people who deny the holocaust do it because they like shocking people and they love the attention rather than having any credible evidence. From what it seems this guy was doing the "oh crap, their really gonna bring me to court for this! Oh I have discovered some new info it really was true..."

The holocaust and the denial of jesus or the religion of christianity are two very different things. Although something I found funny is that some in the muslim world make such a fuss over cartoons of muhammed, yet people like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Egypts leader (can't recall his name) question the holocaust openly. Just a case of role reversal with taboos.